With high-profile investigations under way against Democrats and Republicans, Congress is facing a series of difficult tests of the toughened ethics system that it put in place to weed out corruption and malfeasance among its members…

Since then, however, no member of Congress has been censured, the toughest punishment short of expulsion, despite a number of recent scandals involving sexual impropriety, financial dealings and conflicts of interest. The record illustrates how Congress has struggled to police itself after years in which its ethics committees were often derided as ineffectual. (Emphasis added)